News from the Library of Congress

February 18, 2009

Daniel Mark Epstein Shines Poetic Light on Abraham Lincoln March 10

Poet and Abraham Lincoln scholar Daniel Mark Epstein will provide a different approach to the many Lincoln bicentennial celebrations held throughout Washington, D.C. this spring. Epstein will read poems that focus on the 16th president of the United States, in a Poetry at Noon event at the Library of Congress.

Epstein will read at noon, Tuesday, March 10, in the Whittall Pavilion on the ground level of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C. The poetry reading dovetails with "With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition" which opened at the Library of Congress on Feb. 12 and runs through May 9.

The reading is sponsored by the Library's Poetry and Literature Center in the Office of Scholarly Programs, with support from Union Pacific Corp. The event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed. A book signing and reception will follow the program.

Epstein, who is the author of "The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage" (2008), has two new books coming out. "Lincoln's Men: The President and His Secretaries" (2009) is a narrative portrait of the three men -- John Nicolay, John Hay and William Stoddard -- who served as Lincoln's secretaries during the Civil War. "Glass House" (2009) is Epstein's eighth book of poems.

The New York Sun once observed, "Epstein writes not as a poet and biographer but as an amalgam of both." Epstein also is a dramatist, whose work has been widely published and performed. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1948, he was educated at Kenyon College. In the 1970s his poetry first appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic. His first volume of poems was published in 1973, and his plays appeared soon after in regional theater and Off-Broadway. Epstein's biography of Nat King Cole was a 1999 New York Times Notable Book and his biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay was on the New York Public Library's "Books to Remember" list for 2001. "The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage" was named one of the best books of 2008 by both the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Epstein's honors include a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship and a literature award in 2006 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

"With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition" and its national tour are made possible by the generous support of Union Pacific Corp.

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